DIY salt dough cat ornaments

If you're looking for a last minute Christmas gift that you can whip up at home, look no further! Salt dough ornaments are so easy to make and you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now, so you don't even have to leave the house! I decided to make custom cat ornaments for all of my family members based on their own cats (and then a hot air balloon for my cat-less grandmother!) They came out SO cute and I even made a little Arrietty one for myself!



Materials needed:

2 c. flour
1c. salt
1c. cold water
acrylic paint
mod podge (optional)
paintbrushes
ribbon
template (download here)

Mix the flour and salt together, and then add the water until the dough is smooth. Knead the dough for ten minutes (mine didn't actually get very smooth until I had already been kneading it for a few minutes, so make sure to be patient with the dough!) and then let it rest for 20 minutes.



You can definitely try to use cookie cutters for your dough, but I prefer the more homemade look of hand-molding them myself. I placed some plastic wrap over my template so that it wouldn't stick, and then I rolled up little balls of dough and used the template to shape them into a cat head. Then I used a large plastic needle to poke a hole at the top for ribbon and placed the cats onto a greased cookie sheet that I lined with aluminum foil.

Bake at 250' for 2 hours and then let cool completely before you paint them.



I painted my cat heads to look like all of the cats in my family, but very loosely. I just wanted them to look simple, not like photographs. When they're all finished, give them a coat of Mod Podge (or honestly clear nail polish would work too!) and then add a ribbon in the hole. And voila! A very thoughtful homemade present :)

DIY Joyeux Noël tree topper

I've been looking for a cute tree topper for a few years now and still haven't found anything that really felt *perfect* to me. Then I saw these metallic pipe cleaners at AC Moore last week and a lightbulb lit up over my head! I am so incredibly thrilled with how this came out, and I think it'll be at the top of my tree for many years to come :)



You'll need:

This Joyeux Noel printable template
Pipe cleaners (I used these from AC Moore)
Scissors



Begin by tracing the letters with the pipe cleaners. I only used the rose gold color, but I think this would also be so pretty alternating each letter with a different metallic color!

Every time that you come to a joint (like where the two loops of the J meet) wrap the wire around itself so that it holds the shape. Each time that you need a new pipe cleaner, just twist the ends together with about 1" overlapping to make sure it's very secure. I did Joyeux separate from Noel and then combined them in the next step--



To attach Joyeux to Noel, just take a little piece of pipe cleaner (about 2") and wrap it around the two pieces to secure them together. I attached the J to the N, the X to the L, and (not pictured) the Y to the O.



Finally take one more piece of pipe cleaner (I used silver since it's the color of my tree!) and fold it in half, then slide it over the O in Noel. Twist the pipe cleaner pieces together, and then just wrap it around the top of your tree! You could definitely do this with other phrases, the Francophile in me just loves saying Joyeux Noël :)

DIY pom-pom snow window hanging

This DIY has been on my to-do list for seven years. I'm not even exaggerating, I got the idea when I was on a trip to Disney World in 2011. I finally bought the supplies to make this *three* years ago. And after shuffling the materials between drawers, I finally did it this week! Phew!

So, in 2011 when I was at Disney I saw a window display with fake snowballs made out of pom-poms and started brainstorming a way to make it myself as a holiday decoration. I'm so happy with how this came out and (like a lot of my holiday decorations) I've been staring at it wondering if it'll work all year long because I don't know if I can bring myself to ever take it down!



Materials needed:

- white pom-poms (the larger size was easier to thread)
- white yarn
- 2 wooden dowels
- a large plastic needle



Before you start, measure the height of the window where you want to hang the garland.  Then cut strips of yarn to fit the window. I varied the length of my pieces so that they aren't all the same. I think it looks more like snow and less like a curtain that way.

Tie a piece of yarn to the dowel with a double-knot and then thread your needle. Start threading pom poms until you reach the end of the yarn, and double-knot again. Then slide your last pom-pom down to the knot. I kept a lot of space between my pom-poms and mixed up the spacing so that it looked like snow. You can move the balls on the yarn, so once you hang up the display you can still adjust them and fiddle around with the spacing until it looks exactly the way you like :)

I did six strands of yarn on one dowel and five on the other (to make room for my hanging plants) To hang up the pom-poms just place the dowel over your curtain rod until it's weight is counter-balanced with the pom-poms in the front. Alternately, you could always do one strand at a time and tape them up or hang them with command strips instead of using the dowels.



This came out exactly how I envisioned it, and now I have a little Disney-style magic in my office! :)